Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder of Bumble, a dating app focused on women, will step down and be replaced by Lidiane Jones, the CEO of workplace-messaging platform Slack, according to Bumble’s announcement on Monday.

Ms. Jones will take over as Bumble’s CEO on Jan. 2, while Ms. Wolfe Herd will remain as executive chair of the company. The news was initially reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Ms. Wolfe Herd, 34, who co-founded Tinder, another dating app, stated that she is handing over the reins to a leader and a woman she deeply respects.

“This transition to executive chair allows me to take on a new and exciting role, return to my roots as a founder, and bring immense passion and focus to this next phase of growth,” she said.

Bumble, which empowers women to make the first move, went public in 2021 and briefly made Ms. Wolfe Herd one of the few female billionaires in the world, as reported by Bloomberg. As of June, the dating app had 2.5 million paying users, according to Bumble’s second-quarter earnings report. Bumble will report its third-quarter earnings on Tuesday.

According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center last year, approximately one-third of adults in the United States have used a dating app. However, dating apps faced challenges in revenue growth and user expansion last year, raising concerns among investors about market saturation, as stated in a Morgan Stanley report.

Match Group, the parent company of various online dating services including Tinder, Match.com, OkCupid, Hinge, and Plenty of Fish, saw its stock price fall over 15 percent after lowering its 2023 revenue projections in its third-quarter earnings report. Match reported a 6 percent decline in paying Tinder users compared to the same period the previous year.

Ms. Jones, a native of Brazil, assumed the role of Slack CEO in January. Prior to that, she held executive positions at Salesforce and spent nearly 13 years at Microsoft. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, she discussed her focus on using artificial intelligence to enhance matchmaking on the Bumble app.

“As a woman who has dedicated her career to the field of technology,” Ms. Jones stated, “I consider it a privilege to utilize my experience to lead a company committed to women and promoting equality, integrity, and kindness, which are deeply personal and inspiring to me.”